Hi, I am a newbie at this so please bear with me. We (my husband and I) had not looked at our credit report for 6 years. Until this month. And boy were we shocked!!! We had very good credit until 1997 when I became very ill with a tumor on on my kidney causing serious damage. Well 6 years and 11 surgeries later (some experimental from Duke U. So not providers to our insurance). All medical is paid. We even went through credit couselors to pay credit cards and med. bills. Then after already being $400 over our budget my husband had a tumor on a hernia in his groin area and a hernia on his back. Surgery worked and he is well and back to work (Mining). But due to short term disability we were unable to meet the terms of the credit counselor and ware canceled. After a lot of hard work every medical bill is finally paid. So we decided we would get a home equity loan to give our home much needed repair and pay off the rest of our credit cards that had been charged off. The only loan we could get was a sub prime at 10.99% interest. And all they could do was pay off our credit cards totaling $9000 at most. Well no we find out that the loan officer settled with these companies and to make matters worse they are now settled charge offs. He told us that by paying them is would raise our credit score to 700. LIE! So now we are still in the same boat only we now owe $10,000 to pay off a $3,000 loan at 10.99%. Anyway before I write a book I will ask just a few questions at a time. Should I send a sob story letter to the original collection agency and beg for mercy because it is all medical? There are 4 paid judements on our credit report from these credit agencies also. I believe many of these debts are duplicated with the judgments and the judgments say status unknown. Some from 5 years ago!! When we called the agencies they told us "Oh Yes they are paid, just have the CA contact us". Should I send a letter to them or the big three to dispute this and ask that they be removed? Well have to run to work. Will be back tonight. Have many questions. Thanks in advance... Chickslostit
good lord. unfortunately, collection agencies are immune to sob stories, so that route may be less than fruitful... with paid collections, just dispute the listings with all three brueaus, wait the 30 days and see what falls off... same thing for the judgments and charge offs... there are instructions on the best way to dispute (or how many accounts to dispute at a time) listed in the faq section of this board, do some searches and definitely read the faq... lots of valuable info here... good luck.
Kbean.... Thanks for the info. I was just about ready to send them a letter too. Glad I didn't. On TU report there are 22 negative tradeline due to medical. from only 3 credit agencies Credit agency #1 6 entries 4 judgments Credit agency #2 8 entries Credit agency #3 4 enries How can we possibly dispute these as ours when we have paid them? Doesn't that claim responsibility when you pay them? ( this is dumb question... sorry).. They say to only dispute a few things at a time. limit 4. So would 1 dispute be for 1 entry or for 1 agency? Example... many of the enries from agency #1 are duplicate accounts and duplicated again on the judgments. So would we dipute one entry or all entries as 1 dispute? We also have several positive entries that have exceeded the 7 year limit. Child Support 1981- 1995 Chevron 1987-1995 Wells Fargo 1994-1995 Wells Fargo Revolving $1,000 1994-1994 Closed and paid In your opinion.... should we ask that these accounts be removed from our report? Do you think they are doing us more harm than good??? And with 28 paid negative entries... 18 medical, 4 medical judgments, 1 tax lien 1999, 2 charge cards(slow pay), and 3 charge cards paid charge offs. Do you think it would be wise to hire a professional credit repair agent? Thanks, Chickslostit
well, just try it. dispute 4 at a time w/ each bureau... say if you have a medical account that is on all 3 bureaus...do that at the same time. so it would be a dispute of 4 items with each bureau. positive trades can be on your report for 10 years...don't dispute the positive ones don't worry about them being paid... better chance of deletion with cra that way...but usually if you pay, you lose your leverage for deletion...but if they have been paid a while maybe they are less likely to care and won't verify with cra. you ought to go read the FAQ section of this board...very informative.. good luck
I would also add using the "Nutcase Rationale" for approaching this one (you can find it here:http://a1248.svwh.net/BoardFAQ.htm). Since it is paid, the CA has little desire to spend time and effort validating a debt that has been paid off. Send your "nutcase" letter, wait a week, then send your disputes to the CRA. Chances are high that the CA won't report that the account is in dispute, and you now have them on a FCRA/FDCPA violation i.e. grounds to take them to court and force the deletion.
There is also a HIPPA description and instructions by WHYCHAT that may help Do a search for this info. Sorry I do not have the link. Michelle
Re: Re: Paid Medical Collections Sorry Jilyn I exaggerated. After looking over some papers with the mortgage Co. If we would have borrowed $3,000 to pay off debt. It would have been at 8.99% interest. When we said we couldn't't do that all debts had to be paid. The loan officer asked authorization to settle with the cc. (it wasn't the underwriter (NJones). So in actuality, We added $10,000 to our mortgage at 10.9% to pay off $5,000 debt. I known we are stupid (We don't have to be reminded just how much . We did this before we new that just because you pay off ALL your debts.... Doesn't mean your credit is going to improve. Thanks everyone for your input. I have been doing a lot of research on this board. I fired off a hippa letter to St. Vincent yesterday. This is one account I known for fact has everything duplicated and has added different account # to the same account. So now all I have to do is wait. If it works it will remove 9! trade lines from our report. And if it does work I think this is the first approach I am going to take with all the medical. I'll keep you guys posted.... Chickslost
Re: Re: Paid Medical Collections One (or 2) more thing. When I called a collection agency about a week ago I asked about a judgment that they had status unknown on the cr. Yhe lady was very kind and said "Yes all your accounts are paid and closed. Just have TU call me" Just recevied a satisfaction in the mail 5yrs later!!!!!!! These dirty rotten dogs!!!! I have to deal with this collection agency for 10 trade lines (all paid medical) 4 judgments (2 status unknown on cr) I believe the other 8 are duplicated by the jugments. I haven't been able to find much on disputing judgments. But still digging. Who can remove a judgment? The collection agency or the court? chickslost P.S. Should I change threads to begin questions on the judgments?
Re: Re: Paid Medical Collections Just received reply from hospital today concerning the HIPPA letter I sent to them. I told them there was numerous duplicate accounts on our credit report. They said that the reports are correct because they reflect balances PAID. The judgment I told them about. Their collection agency has status unknown. This account was paid in full 1997. They told me that it is not their resposibility to update public records or that of their collection agency. It is up to the Credit Reporting Agency. I also told them about the privacy portion of these tradelines due to HIPPA. They told me that I should be aware that these regulations became effective April 2003. So therefor didn't have any affect on the medical that was reported to a CRA before then. Can somebody please help!!!! and tell me where to go from here??
Re: Re: Paid Medical Collections Have you received your disputes back from the CA's yet? What happened with them? Michelle
Re: Re: Re: Paid Medical Collections 1--The CRA can delete the judgment, paid or unpaid, but you have to dispute it with them. These can be tough. They need to verify with the courthouse your name and address on the judgment, so if you've changed your name and have moved since the filing, you have a good chance. If not, than make sure the address that is on the judgment is removed from your CR's, and then use another address as yours. Change your address with the CRA's to the new one (a relative's, friend etc) and wait a month or 2, and then dispute the judgment as "not mine". You may get lucky and get them deleted. Judgments very rarely have your SSN on them so the CRA cannot verify them that way. They must verify that 2 items match: name and address. IF they cannot, they must delete the listing. That's why it is important to change your address. However, you need to 1st get a copy of the judgments from the courthouse to verify what is on them. Go in person and get them. 2--It IS the CA's responsibility (ultimatetly the judgment creditor whome filed or had legal rep file it) to update the judgment as satisfied. The CRA is not going to know S**T about it. They learn about the updates from 1 of 2 parties: CA or consumer! So they are wrong here. And FYI, whatever you do, DO NOT EVER SEND ANY PUBLIC RECORD INFORMATION TO A CRA TO TRY TO PROVE ANYTHING! EVEN IN THE CASE OF A SATISFACTION OF JUDGMENT. BIG NO-NO! Then, they'll have it on file to use against you sometime. Good Luck
